Exposition Collective

Collective exhibition featuring artwork by William Klein, Sebastião Salgado, Daido Moriyama, Joel Meyerowitz, Bruce Gilden, Miho Kajioka, Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre, Edouard Elias, Toshio Shibata, Claude Nori, Lek & Sowat, Joakim Eskildsen, Donata Wenders, Vincent Delerm, Matt Henry, Jacob Aue Sobol, Sze Tsung Nicolas Leong, The Anonymous Project, Laurent Eli Badessi, Diane Grimonet, Olivier Dassault, Nicolas Comment, The Bronx Documentary Center, Bernard Cantié, Reza, Eric Bouvet, Kosuke Okahara, Philippe Guionie, Bartabas, Mario Giacomelli, Luigi Ghirri, Janine Niépce and Marc Riboud.

“Tomorrow’s truth feeds off yesterday’s mistakes”, wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

“Vertiges des Jours” was launched during the last days of quarantine and presented as a challenge directed at Polka’s represented photographers. We asked these artists, wherever they may be, in Paris, Tokyo, New York, Florence, London or Biarritz, to consider and interpret one simple, yet ambitious question: “How do you see the world of tomorrow?”

Each response was different, with photographers either selecting one or more pieces from their archives, or producing new, exclusive material for the project. All these images, accompanied by the photographers’ texts, stand as testimonies of hope, doubt or longing for our collective future.

In this large fresco of visions, there is a “dream half” of the equation: a possible society that will become more just, tied together in solidarity, increasingly focused on others, on the family unit, the community and on local sustainability. A better world, where environmental preservation and respect for regional or tribal cultures will become a priority. But there is also a “nightmare half” of the equation: a world not better off, but much worse, plagued with uncertainty and skyrocketing unemployment, widening social inequalities, an increased disparity between the richest and poorest countries, rising protectionism, nationalism and populism.

Exhibited on the walls of Polka galerie and published in Polka magazine, this vast collective project traces the outlines of a possible world that awaits us.

Echoing the exhibition’s theme, Mario Giacomelli’s and Luigi Ghirri’s work will also be exhibited, representing two photographers’ practices and visions centered on local, introverted creation. These two artists, who voluntarily worked in the confinement of their homes, exemplify that introspection also derives complexity and imagination in creative work.